Since the start of the movie industry, the most popular stories have been love stories. Because there's no greater fantasy than falling in love with just the right person. But what's one to do when love has completely fallen apart? What movies can one watch when they're in the throes of a breakup? Thankfully, there's over 30 movies that are perfect for the (sad) occasion.
While everyone deals with breakups in their own ways with their own movie rituals - Jess from the show New Girl, for example, liked to cry endlessly to Dirty Dancing - some movies are undisputed in how they heal broken hearts without useless platitudes like "love conquers all." Sometimes, love needs to take a hike.
If you're still feeling raw from the end of a relationship, or even just a situationship (which you knew was going to end badly, right?), here are 32 movies to watch now that you're sad and single again. Cheer up! Or don't. These movies will get you feeling feelings no matter what you're looking for.
32. Chasing Amy (1997)
Breakups are a time of self-reflection, meditation, and realization. Few movies capture the sad and hilarious ordeal of finding clarity like Chasing Amy. Kevin Smith's third feature film is perhaps his most mature, in its tale of a comic book artist (Ben Affleck) who falls for breathtaking Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams). See, Affleck's Holden believes he and Alyssa would be great together, if she weren't a lesbian. With writer/director Smith at the top of his game, Chasing Amy is a blaring siren warning against letting our infatuations color our perceptions.
31. About Time (2013)
For hopeless romantics who still want to believe in the impossible, there's About Time. Domhnall Gleeson plays a young man in London who inherits his family's power to travel in time. That power comes in handy when he meets and falls in love with enchanting American expat Mary (Rachel McAdams). While About Time demands a little too much suspension of disbelief, it's an uplifting little rom-com that can reinstill a sense of hope. We can't rewind time, but we can always try again.
30. Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012)
Can a divorced couple stay best friends? That's the question grilled by the funny and sincere Celeste and Jesse Forever from director Lee Toland Kreiger. The movie stars Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg as a former couple who married early but remain close friends after their divorce – their chemistry deemed awkward by everyone around them. But when Samberg's Jesse starts a family, Jones' Celeste starts to wonder if she might have regrets. Intelligent and mature, Celeste and Jesse Forever forgo Hollywood happy endings for something more meaningful and real.
29. Notting Hill (1999)
When dealing with breakups, maybe the last thing anyone needs is a sweep-off-your-feet love story. But Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant are irresistible in Notting Hill, one of the best rom-coms to come out at the turn of the century. Roberts plays Hollywood movie star Anna Scott who wanders into a humble bookstore (travel books only) owned by its lonely curator Will (Grant). Amid sparks, the two try to date while dealing with Anna's superstar life. Notting Hill feels like a dream - a love story that only happens in the movies. For some broken hearts, there's nothing better.
28. Lost In Translation (2003)
Lost In Translation isn't a conventional love story. Which is why it's a near-perfect movie to heal from hurt feelings. Directed by Sofia Coppola, the movie stars Bill Murray as an aging Hollywood actor doing commercials in Japan where he meets a beautiful photographer's wife (Scarlett Johansson). Stranded in a strange place together, the two form a deep connection - one that isn't bound by traditional notions of attractions. An "anti-romance" romance that explores the complexities of affairs, Lost In Translation is about the thrill of finding mutual understanding in another wandering soul - a balm for all who feel suddenly abandoned by the universe.
27. Runaway Bride (1999)
If your breakup has you feeling funny about commitment (or lack thereof), seek out Runaway Bride. This classic '90s rom-com co-stars Richard Gere as a magazine columnist in New York City who travels to Maryland to profile Maggie Carpenter (Julia Roberts), a beautiful young woman whose local fame comes from the many men she's left at the altar. Inevitably, Gere and Roberts' characters fall in love while Carpenter prepares to marry - or, the town suspects, leave behind yet again - a popular high school football coach (Christopher Meloni). Runaway Bride is very silly, but through its sheer star power and effective Marc Anthony needle drop during the credits, Runaway Bride runs circles around all our hearts.
26. Decision to Leave (2022)
While his pitch black revenge thriller Oldboy remains his worldwide calling card, Korean auteur Park Chan-wook is arguably underrated for his romantic storytelling. Movies like I'm a Cyborg But That's OK, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and his dark vampire flick Thirst all deal with love in its many forms. But his acclaimed 2022 drama Decision to Leave teems with eroticism in the forbidden attraction between a married police detective (Park Hae-il) and the widow (Tang Wei) suspected of murder. Featuring some of Park Chan-wook’s most titillating direction, Decision to Leave feels like the return of bygone noir romances that can make us relieved we're not caught in someone's vise grip.
25. The Worst Person in the World (2021)
Norway's Joachim Trier interrogates the ups and downs of romance and our need for connections in his 2021 drama The Worst Person in the World. Renate Reinsve plays Julie, an Oslo woman who experiences rollercoaster romances, first with comic book writer Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) and then coffee barista Eivind (Herbert Nordrum). Julie isn't the worst person in the world. But she is someone paralyzed by commitment, which drives all those who try to love her to the point of madness. The movie's standout central set piece - where Julie runs through Oslo past pedestrians and traffic frozen in place - is maybe the most accurate portrayal of what it feels like to fall in love, even when we know it'll all come crashing down.
24. Gone Girl (2014)
For those who are feeling very bitter about their breakups, author Gillian Flynn delivered the ultimate breakup thriller with her 2012 novel Gone Girl. In 2014, director David Fincher faithfully adapted the book to the screen, with Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as the movie's main characters: writing teacher and former journalist Nick Dunne (Affleck), who is suspected of being involved with the disappearance of his sociopathic wife Amy (Pike). While Flynn's book is a propulsive read, Fincher is a monster behind the camera; whatever version of Gone Girl you pick up, know that you'll be dwelling in the darkest places of the heart.
23. Past Lives (2023)
If you find yourself still asking yourself "What if?" after getting dumped, watch Celine Song’s acclaimed romantic drama Past Lives to splash cold water on your face. Released in 2023 to critical acclaim, Past Lives stars Greta Lee and Teo Yoon as childhood friends who, over the course of some 20 or so years, weave in and out of each other’s lives. The movie is a heartbreaking but moving examination into the romantic possibilities that have long passed us by, but might still think about from time to time. In the apocalyptic landscape that is modern dating, Past Lives invites us to think about the other paths we weren't foolish enough to try.
22. How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998)
For some, breakups mean focusing on the things that actually matter in life and letting love come last. But movies like How Stella Got Her Groove Back, directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan, posit that maybe, there can be balance. Angela Bassett stars as a successful, forty-something divorcee and single mother whose much-needed vacation to Jamaica puts her in front of strapping islander Winston (Taye Diggs). After a dreamy escape from the real world, Stella is torn between her potentially real feelings from a steamy fling and her responsibilities back home. The end of one thing is always the start of another, and How Stella Got Her Groove Back is practically a video manual on how to get yourself back.
21. (500) Days of Summer (2009)
Do you love The Smiths? If you do, you probably already love (500) Days of Summer. The movie, which turned Joseph Gordon-Levitt into a leading man and gave Zooey Deschanel fame before her starring role in New Girl, follows an aimless architect (Gordon-Levitt) who falls for mystifying Summer (Deschanel). While the two get together, they fail to come to a shared understanding of what together actually means - and if it means forever. While the movie primarily takes the point of view of lovesick Tom, (500) Days of Summer is an everlasting portrait of those romances that we sure felt like "the one." But as the movie's narrator itself warns at the top: This is not a love story.
20. Friends With Kids (2011)
Friends With Kids is a movie that serves a highly specific need: To remind us how much work relationships take, and we could be better off missing out. Released in 2011, this underrated and overlooked dramedy features Adam Scott, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Chris O'Dowd - plus Jennifer Westfeldt, who writes, directs, and co-stars as the female lead - as a small circle of friends in varying stages of relationships. At the center are close friends Jason (Scott) and Julie (Westfeldt), who haven't yet found a real partner but yearn to be parents. In a huge leap of faith, the two decide to platonically raise a child together while still seeing other people. (Megan Fox appears in a small supporting role, as Jason's new girlfriend.) It sounds like a bad idea, which Jon Hamm hilariously verbalizes. But Friends With Kids is entertaining as it is uncompromising about the ways people hide behind veneers of happiness to mask just how messy love can really be.
19. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. In Quentin Tarantino's mid-aughts classic duology, Uma Thurman takes up a katana to scratch off the enigmatic "Bill" (David Carradine) and the squad of femme fatale assassins he used to manage. While the two movies keep the true relationship between Thurman's "The Bride" and Bill secret until later in the story, just know that Kill Bill is a movie extremely suited to those who've just survived love's violence with blood still dripping off their faces. There ain't no crying over love here, daddy-o. There's only revenge.
18. Bridget Jones' Diary (2001)
In a 2023 survey sponsored by the coffee franchise Costa Coffee, some two thousand British adults named Bridget Jones' Diary - an adaptation of Helen Fielding's 1996 novel - as the ultimate movie to deal with a breakup. It's not hard to see why. Renée Zellweger lights up the screen as the titular Bridget Jones, a 30-something gal who takes up chronicling her life in a diary, and winds up attracting the affections of two imperfect bachelors (played by Colin Firth and Hugh Grant). While the movie's popularity may be attributed to its familiarity and safety in good feelings - which are heavily sought-after through breakups - the movie still offers worthwhile insight into learning to snap oneself out of funks and take charge. That's when the things you're looking for come looking for you in return.
17. Midsommar (2019)
Not all breakups are a bad thing. Sometimes a relationship was truly toxic or one-sided, and it needed to end for everyone's sake. Which is why Ari Aster's unsettling folk horror hit from 2019, Midsommar, deserves a place in the "breakup movie" canon. Florence Pugh leads the movie as a woman still grieving the murder of her parents by tagging along on her boyfriend's trip to Sweden to attend a midsummer festival. But things are not what they seem, as the group finds themselves in the middle of something more ancient and evil than they realize. While the ending is a total downer - being about the ways cults attract the most vulnerable - there's no denying the alluring power of Midsommar to make us feel better about leaving someone behind.
16. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)
We'll admit: Scott Pilgrim is not the greatest cinematic role model when it comes to relationships. He's a coward! And he kind of sucks! But if there's one key throughline in the movie, it's Scott Pilgrim's revelation that true love isn't the cheat code to winning the game of life, but having self-respect. Edgar Wright's madcap movie adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's popular graphic novels, released to buzzy acclaim in the summer of 2010, is more than a star-studded love letter to millennial pop culture, indie music, and video games. It's also a remarkably smart movie that satirizes how everyone comes with personal histories and dealing with them can never be set to "easy mode."
15. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
When going through a breakup, it's important to focus on yourself. Do things you've always wanted to do. Go on that resort trip to Oahu - just don't run into your ex and her new boyfriend. Because that's the problem faced by Peter (Jason Segel), a television music composer who goes on a solo trip to cope only to end up in the same resort as his recent ex Sarah Marshall (Kirsten Bell), a TV actress, and her obnoxious new rock star boyfriend (Russell Brand). Arguably one of the funniest studio comedies about breakups ever made, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a compulsively rewatchable 2000s classic that makes broken hearts sing like a vampire puppet musical.
14. Don Jon (2013)
In 2013, writer and director Joseph Gordon-Levitt explored how certain media can pervert our perceptions of what relationships are supposed to feel like with his romantic comedy Don Jon. Gordon-Levitt himself stars in the title role, a type-A New Jersey bachelor with an internet porn addiction who falls for a drop-dead beautiful woman (Scarlett Johansson), her own "porn" being Hollywood romances. As the two embark on a relationship, they collide over their differences regarding physical intimacy. While Don Jon earned positive reviews when it opened in 2013, the movie has bizarrely gone under the radar since. Today, it can help remind us what real intimacy looks and feels like when it's healthy and not exploitative.
13. Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Luca Guadagnino's revered 2017 coming-of-age romance Call Me By Your Name is all about the pains of first love: the intoxicating high of recognizing it in its purest form for the first time, and the inevitable fall as almost all first loves are doomed to suffer. With a profound exploration of one's real formative adult romance told through philosophical dialogue and affecting performances from Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer - not to mention, postcard-worthy views of the Italian countryside - Call Me By Your Name is spellbinding and moving as a sun-soaked monument to love and memory.
12. La La Land (2016)
Ryan Gosling has no shortage of movies that can mend a broken heart. His 2010 drama Blue Valentine, with Michelle Williams, is entirely about the disintegration of a married couple, while his role of Ken in the 2023 summer hit Barbie is centered on his reluctant acceptance that he is not the one for Margot Robbie. And that's not to forget his dark thriller Drive from 2011, with his nameless protagonist the new patron saint of haunted men. But more than any other Gosling movie, his 2016 romantic musical La La Land takes the cake. Gosling and Emma Stone explode like fireworks as a couple in Hollywood who struggle to reconcile between love and living out their dreams. In an ironic change from the love stories that Hollywood made famous, La La Land posits that there's more to life than love.
11. The Before Trilogy (1995-2013)
If your breakup has you feeling totally hopeless, then Richard Linklater's Before Trilogy is what you need. Beginning with 1995's Before Sunrise and continuing with Before Sunset in 2004 and Before Midnight in 2013, the Before Trilogy charts the whirlwind romance between an American traveler (Ethan Hawke) and a French student (Julie Delpy) who meet by chance on a train to Paris. While the sequels Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013) are just as worthy pictures that interrogate love's strange powers, Before Sunrise stands tall as a single, standalone film about how you sometimes meet exactly the right people at exactly the right time - and how that time doesn't always last forever.
10. Last Year in Marienbad (1961)
Alain Resnais' beguiling French-language classic about truth and memory is not to miss, whether you're in the throes of heartbreak or not. Released in 1961, the film takes place in a luxury hotel where an unnamed man (Girgio Albertazzi) goes up to an unnamed woman (Delphine Seyrig) and insists that they not only know each other, but are in love and have plans to get married. The woman denies any of this, kicking off a seductive odyssey about what is true - and what is real. With impeccable visual compositions that dwell in the uncanny valley, Last Year in Marienbad is a movie that invites us all to realize how our own memories of past loves are more one-sided than we care to admit.
9. Swingers (1996)
This one's for the boys. Directed by Doug Liman (of Mr. and Mrs. Smith) and written by and starring Jon Favreau in the movie that launched his career, Swingers charts the lives of single people chasing their dreams in Los Angeles. One of them, a comedian from New York named Mike Peters (Favreau), is still dealing with his breakup when his womanizing friend Trent (Vince Vaughn) decides to embark on an impromptu trip to Las Vegas. Over the course of the movie, Mike learns from Trent how to cut loose, make connections, and move on - critical lessons that everyone, dudes especially, need to learn when love has them feeling blue. You can't stay in place forever, you know. You gotta keep, y'know, swingin'.
8. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
The beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid! When a breakup inspires a call to adventure, there's no escape greater than to Middle-earth. Peter Jackson's definitive fantasy film trilogy, itself based on J.R.R. Tolkien's seminal novels, clocks in at almost nine total hours - and a whopping 11 hours, if you're doing the Extended Editions. (Which you should.) But more than just killing an entire weekend on your couch (because let's face it, after a breakup, we're not going anywhere), the movies are worthwhile in their timeless portrayal of keeping a brave face and staying resolute against the infinite darkness. What's that? You want a literal love story in there? See: Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Arwen (Liv Tyler). You'll thank me later.
7. Miami Vice (2006)
When heartache has you jonesing for mojitos, Miami Vice can get you there. Michael Mann's cult crime noir from 2006 (itself a gritty reboot of the 1980s television hit that Mann produced) is the go-to movie for anyone who knows when attraction brings forth darkened clouds. While the movie is primarily about undercover Miami cops (Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx) trying to take down a trafficking operation, the real story - the one anyone actually remembers - is the forbidden romance between Farrell's Detective Sonny and alluring Isabella (Gong Li). In the same way one too many mojitos and joy rides on go-fast boats can make your head swirl, so too does Sonny and Isabella's clandestine fling dizzy up the place, and in a tragic, almost Shakespearean kind of way. A star-crossed romance for calloused souls, Miami Vice captures the thrill of romance without a safety net.
6. Stardust Memories (1980)
He may be persona non grata, but there's no denying that filmmaker Woody Allen is behind some of the sharpest movies about modern love ever made. While most folks tend to refer to his classics like Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters, it's his 1980 comedy Stardust Memories that is the most explicit about rebounding and learning from past romances. Allen plays the role of a filmmaker (what else) whose attendance of a career retrospective inspires him to revisit the women that inspired his movies. A satirical take on Frederico Fellini's 8 ½, Allen's Stardust Memories is often overlooked compared to his other masterpieces. But for those still trying to emotionally rebuild, the movie is pretty much perfect in offering some tough love.
5. Her (2013)
A transfixing piece of sci-fi with a grounded understanding of love, heartbreak, and moving on, Spike Jonze's Her is a modern classic that, even in 2013, was well ahead of its time. Joaquin Phoenix stars as an inverted man going through a divorce when he buys a cutting-edge new virtual A.I. assistant; voiced by Scarlett Johansson, the A.I. names herself Samantha. Taken aback by her lifelike fidelity, Phoenix finds himself getting really close with Samantha over intense and thoughtful discussions. While Her is simply a can't-miss classic of the 2010s, it speaks especially to those lost in the woods of a breakup. The movie's warm photography and unusually welcoming designs (in contrast to other harsh science fiction dystopias) feels like a haven, a safe place to reevaluate on what it really means to let go.
Tip: Do a double feature with Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation. The two filmmakers were once married and then divorced, with each of their movies fictionalizing their real feelings towards each other and the end of their relationships.
4. High Fidelity (2000)
It is, just maybe, the movie to watch after a breakup. A "Top 5," if you will. John Cusack stars in Stephen Frears' romantic dramedy High Fidelity as a Chicago record store owner who copes with his most recent failed relationship by retracing his entire romantic history to figure out why it all keeps falling apart. (All the while, Cuasck addresses the audience directly, serving as the narrator to his own story.) Reflective and witty, High Fidelity invites us all to reexamine our histories while vibing out to a most tasteful soundtrack. An acclaimed series remake ran for one season on Hulu, with Zoe Kravitz in the lead role.
3. Marriage Story (2019)
Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story, released on Netflix in 2019, stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson as two artists undergoing an arduous and expensive bi-coastal divorce. (The movie was heavily inspired by Baumbach's own split with TV actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.) The brilliance of Baumbach's honest filmmaking is how the movie ends up like an emotional powder keg, exploding in its climax as both Driver and Johassnon's characters spew all their ugly resentment like international superpowers deploying bombs. Marriage Story is beautiful in its authenticity, a movie sans flourish, only the strength of A-plus actors fully inhabiting the roles of complicated people who don't want to hurt each other out of malice but because they still love each other, somehow. Marriage Story offers no pretty resolutions, only a promise that love means you can still have each other even if you're not together.
2. Chungking Express (1994)
Renowned Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai is loved the world over for his grasp of sensuality and desire. His 2000 romantic drama In the Mood for Love, towering in its timeless portrait of unbearable yearning, is many people's introduction to his body of work. But his 1994 movie Chungking Express is perhaps what freshly-dumped souls are really looking for. Chungking Express tells two different stories - each centered around different men (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung) - whose abandonment by their partners are interrupted by new people. Chungking Express has a very different vibe than his other movies; Janet Maslin of The New York Times criticized it for its "aggressive energy" akin to MTV. But for anyone still in recovery from heartbreak, any Wong Kar-wai movie will do. In the Mood for Love gets you in the mood for love, but Chungking Express is a ride to somewhere else.
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
There are arguments to be made that Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the best and the worst movie to watch post-breakup. Jim Carrey stars as a man who learns that his estranged girlfriend (Kate Winslet) has just undergone an experimental procedure in which all memories of their relationship have been purged. Distraught, Carrey's protagonist chooses to undergo the same procedure. But in the deep recesses of his collapsing memories, he realizes that her memory is what he holds dear the most. In the end, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind's semi-ambiguous ending has multiple suggestions. For one thing: Letting go is really, really hard, and we should all give ourselves credit for learning to do so. Second: Even doomed relationships are worth their trouble, because those are the ones that really teach us about ourselves.
